Highest child mortality rate in 2023 (per 1000 live births)

110

Country: Somalia

Lowest child mortality rate in 2023 (per 1000 live births)

1.4

Country: Finland

Number of countries under the SDG 3.2 target in 2023: child mortality <= 25/1000

66

69.7% of these countries reside in Africa

Spatial distribution of child mortality rates over time
Top 20 countries with the highest child mortality rates in 2023
Relationship between child mortality rate and fertility rate
Relationship between child mortality rate and GDP per capita
Relationship between child mortality and daily income per capita

The data we have used to generate this dashboard have been made available below, downloadable as a csv file.

The data used to build this dashboard originate from the Gapminder Foundation.

The Gapminder Foundation is a non-profit venture registered in Stockholm, Sweden, that promotes sustainable global development and achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals by increased use and understanding of statistics and other information about social, economic, and environmental development at local, national, and global levels.

The Gapminder was founded in 2005 by Ola Rosling, Anna Rosling Rönnlund, and Hans Rosling. The name Gapminder was derived from the “Mind the Gap” warning messages on the London Underground.

If you wish to know more about this Foundation, please visit their Wikipedia webpage available here.

Gapminder combines data from multiple sources into unique coherent time-series that can’t be found elsewhere.

Most of their data are not good enough for detailed numeric analysis. They are only good enough to revolutionize people’s worldview. More details can be accessed here.

Two examples of Hans Rosling’s videos are embedded below.

This dashboard presents the global trends in mortality rate among children aged 0-5 years, covering the period from 2001 to 2023.

It shows the evolution in child mortality rates over these years, highlighting a great improvement in this indicator. However, the latest figures for 2023 reveal that 66 countries are still to meet the SDG 3.2 target which states that child mortality rate should lie below or equal 25/1000 live births. Of note, 46 (69.7%) of these countries are part of the African continent where many children continue to die before their fifth anniversary. The second most affected continent is Asia with 11 countries (16.7%), followed by Oceania (5 countries; 7.6%) and The Americas (4 countries; 6.1%).

Interestingly, we analysed the relationship between child mortality rate on one hand, and total fertility rate, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, and daily household per capita income (in USD) on the other hand. We showed that countries with high or very high child mortality rates are the ones with the lowest GDPs. In addition, our plots clearly illustrate that countries with higher child mortality rates have higher fertility rates. Similarly, countries with higher mortality rates were the ones with lower average daily household per capita income.

Therefore, the reduction in child mortality rate could be attained by reducing the fertility rate, and acting on macroeconomic indicators such as the daily income and GDP whose increases could help in diminishing the child mortality rate. Countries of the African and Asian continents are those where substantial efforts remain to be implemented.